One of the fun parts of doing what I do for a living is that when my girlfriend, my mom, or some other friend or loved one asks me what I’m planning to do today, I can say, “I’m make’n monstas.”

Monsters, critters, adversaries, or creatures, they’re all fun to create. Even when you are just recreating something that has come before. And they’re challenging to make. For the most part, each time when you create a monster—a monster that is going into a published work—you are crafting something that only lives between 3-5 rounds. You’re sentencing a bundle of statistics, a cool story, and an evocative piece of art to the most exciting death sentence that you can imagine.

Of course, there are a few assumptions here. Every creature that you can create can be something more than a victim of heroics in action. Many have the possibility for roleplaying interaction. Some could become more cunning villains that can play a part greater than a sword-and-spell cushion, but most are going to suffer the fate of active speed bumps made to challenge heroic progress. The grand majority of monsters are humming Metallic’s Disposable Heroes—I was made for dying.

But don’t worry, unlike the real guts of that song, it’s all make-believe. It’s all pretend. They really are just a jumble of numbers, story, and art. You’re not a bad person for creating disposable monsters, no matter what some folks on the internet say.

While working on completing Delve, I knew I needed to put together a bestiary for the book, loading it with not only exciting villains (and we’ll talk about Villainy later this week) but just a bunch of fuckers you could fight. I’d already done a few. I’ve been running playtest adventures for friends and at various conventions for the past 5 years. But like everything in the game, those were in flux. I needed to take a 10th look at them, reassess, and make sure they were up to snuff with the current draft of the rules.

While I was doing this review and designing more monsters, I thought it would be fun to share bits and pieces on the Delve patron. I already had Sneak Peek Fridays, but I might want to share other bits on those days, so instead, I decided to create Monster Mondays.

Last week, I told the Patrons about this and shot them the first page of this project—ghouls. But I also wanted to give everyone else a taste of what’s to come. So below, you’ll find that page, and if you are a patron, you’ve already gained access to a new one—bandits.

So check it out!